Her TOP success secrets from 8 years on YouTube with Sazan Hendrix: The YouTube Power Hour Podcast 262
“Most days, I showed up like I had a million people watching me, even if it was only 10 views.”
Be sure to check out my FREE eBook: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic! This 32 page guide will walk you through how to create content during a global crisis PLUS it includes over 75 YouTube video ideas that you can use TODAY to grow your channel!
Sazan Hendrix is a Beauty and lifestyle blogger and YouTuber. She started her self-titled blog 2014 and about a year after, she launched her YouTube channel to accompany it. Her channel has over 500k subscribers and over 47 million video views. As her life has changed, so has her channel! Once a beauty and fashion blogger and YouTuber, her new role as a wife and mother has helped her channel to evolve with her. Sazan truly shows what’s possible for women in the online space in her journey from blogger to YouTuber to podcaster and beyond.
Sazan Hendrix created her YouTube to expand on her already popular blog. Her background in radio/television/film meant she already knew how to edit, but she had to learn how to talk to herself in a room to an imaginary audience. While a lot of the guests on my show say they didn’t take their channel seriously when they first started, Sazan actually went into YouTube with the intention of being serious about it. She was very disciplined early on, and she showed up like there was a million people watching her, even if it was only 10! The transition from blogger to YouTuber was relatively easy for her. By coordinating her videos with her blog posts, it was easy to tack a YouTube video at the bottom of her blog posts to drive traffic to the YouTube channel. By having a blog post AND a YouTube video to highlight the visual aspect of the topic, not only could her blog readers read about what she was passionate about, but now they could SEE and HEAR her passion, and that is what allowed Sazan to grow her YouTube channel and her influence. She started getting about 1,000 new subscribers with every video.
“YouTube really became that place where I could be vulnerably myself, I could be completely authentic, and I could create the content that I wish I was seeing in the world.”
When Sazan first started her channel, YouTube was much different and far less saturated. Sazan has kept her content relatable, and that stuck, but she realized that she could go beyond fashion and beauty. As her life changed and she became a wife and mother, her channel and her content evolved with her, even after initially struggling postpartum. But the true key to Sazan’s YouTube success is how much she pays attention to her analytics, and how she truly treats every video like a complete, 360 degree package, including writing pretty much an entire blog in the description. She really hones in on her audience retention and where her viewers are finding her videos. The great thing about YouTube is that it’s very SEO friendly, and has expanded the ability for creators to really get in the backend and improve their analytics.
“You don’t have to have it all to start a channel for yourself.”
3 Key Interview Takeaways
- You don’t need to have it all. Don’t wait until you have the best equipment or an expensive editor or a perfect lighting setup to start your channel. You just need passion, an idea, an iphone, and some good lighting. Some of Sazan’s best performing videos of the ones she filmed on her iphone that just had good lighting!
- Take advantage of the free resources available. There is an ENDLESS amount of free or dirt-cheap resources available to you right now! Take advantage of all the information that’s out there, just at your fingertips, and learn as much as you can!
- Pay attention to the trends. How do you figure out what’s trending? Go to trends.google.com, look at what’s popular and what’s trending, and figure out how to put your own spin on it. Remember: even if you participate in the trends, you still need to be authentically yourself so that your audience will resonate with YOU.
Mentioned in the Episode:
HUSBAND TRIES MY BREAST MILK! LOL
Makeup + Motivate: JUST BE YOU
Connect with Sazan:
Sazan Hendrix’s Podcast: The Good Life with Stevie and Sazan
Resources
Add your name to the Zero to Influence YouTube Bootcamp waitlist so you are notified when space becomes available!
Watch my replay of my FREE Zero to 100k Subscribers Masterclass
FREE GUIDES:
Creating Content During Crisis: How to Create Impactful Content During COVID-19 Pandemic
Getting Started on YouTube: YouTube Niche Workbook
How to get onto PR lists and receive a TON of free product even if you have a small following: PR List
YOUTUBE OPTIMIZATION PLUG-IN I RECOMMEND
TubeBuddy [Use the code ErikasBuddy to get 20% off]
MY FAVORITE BUSINESS TOOLS
Course Creation: Looking to create a course? Kajabi is the BEST platform hands down. I use this for my course after extensive research on all the other platforms.
Live Calls and Interviews: I use Ecamm for my podcast interviews, both audio and for YouTube that you see here on YouTube. It makes it super easy to share my screen and create the split-screen with my guest. I’m not super techie and this software is really easy to use!
Webinars and Live calls: I use Zoom.us for my group coaching calls in my private membership group for female YouTube creators. It’s also the software I use to record my Road to 100k YouTube Subscribers Masterclass!
THE BEST YOUTUBE/PODCASTING EQUIPMENT
After interviewing HUNDREDS of successful YouTube creators, these are the pieces of equipment that hands down get mentioned time and time again. You can’t go wrong with anything on this list!
- 4k Camera: Great for starting out and vlogging
- Lens: This lens is recommended highly by many of my podcast guests, it gives the blurry “YouTuber” background look.
- Audio: If you want to upgrade your set-up, audio should be one of the first investments (after a good camera). This microphone is unanimously the favorite amongst my podcast guests.
- Podcast/Voiceover Microphone: If you are looking for a great microphone for a podcast or video voiceover, this is it! This is the one that you see in all of my videos and the one I’ve recorded my podcast on for years.
- Webcam: For my interviews, that you see in my videos, this is the webcam that I use. Super inexpensive and easy to set up!
- Inexpensive Lighting Kit: Need to pick up some lights but don’t want to spend a ton? This is a great set that will get you started and help improve the look of your videos.
- Ring light: Looking for that beauty look? Invest in a ring light! This is an inexpensive light that does that trick!
FACEBOOK GROUP
Podcast Music Credit: Boop by x50 @x50music
Music provided by Free Music for Vlogs youtu.be/o52xQkQWzyU
*Erika Vieira is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to www.amazon.com.
**Disclaimers: all opinions are my own, sponsors are acknowledged. Links in the description are typically affiliate links that let you help support the podcast at no extra cost.
